Friday, August 27, 2010

Luna Salt and Caramel Yogurt

Though I've never reviewed a Luna product before, I have mentioned their vanilla yogurt in a post of a Tirol candy based on their signature yogurt, a sublime and fabulously delicious vanilla yogurt. Living up to the awesomeness of their vanilla yogurt is a pretty tall order, and I didn't expect that this salt and caramel flavor would be up to the task. That being said, I still had hopes that it'd be quite enjoyable. My friend Shawn, however, remarked that yogurt, salt, and caramel would never be three flavors that he'd try to combine and was skeptical when I mentioned this find to him.

Note that this "salty caramel" fad seems to be growing wings in Japan. It has been around for awhile, but this is the second salt and caramel flavored product that I've reviewed in the recent past. The most recent was the KitKat salt and caramel big bar, but there have been scads of other products (primarily cookies and chocolates) that I've passed on. I decided to go for this particular offering because it is a Luna yogurt product and because it was so cheap. I found this at Lawson 100, a 100-yen ($1.17) shop. Each little pot is 100 grams (3.5 grams), so it's a small portion, but at only 50-yen per serving, it's a bargain.

This smells like, well, yogurt. The caramel flavor doesn't convey much of a scent. The flavors of the salt and caramel are quite subtle. The little bit of caramel hits you first followed by the salt. The caramel lingers more as the mildest of burnt caramel flavor. Like all Luna yogurts, this is super smooth, high in fat, and decadent. It's also not very sour, which is another hallmark of the Luna brand of what I'd call "dessert yogurt".

This would have been very easy to screw up because of the combination of potentially clashing flavors, but the subtlety of the caramel and salt coupled with a very low sourness level of the yogurt worked well. I can't say that this is for everyone, but it was nice and I'd give it another whirl if I was in the mood.